


A Brief Infinity

by newyorktopaloalto



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Magic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-06 17:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18855793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newyorktopaloalto/pseuds/newyorktopaloalto
Summary: Sarah does not feel a part of the mortal realm - she hasn't for quite awhile. She decides to make a change.





	A Brief Infinity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YunaBlaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YunaBlaze/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Labyrinth, so please don't sue. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope that you enjoy!

Sarah Williams, thirty-one, floundering a little in the wake of the dot com boom, was on yet another binge of sub-par dates. She had told Marie only the month before that she was through dating forever, not wanting to put any more effort into maintaining a relationship she knew would end up nowhere. That swearing-off had been, of course, her downfall—she was never one for limitations, even self-imposed. 

So now here she is, sitting on an uncomfortable chair, an hour into a date with a man whose name she couldn't quite remember. 

“I'm more of a reader,” she says after realizing he had been expecting her to respond, picking at the chicken she had ordered as the sauce slowly congealed on the top of it. 

“Yeah, I can tell,” her date—Jerry, Jesse, something like that—replies, looking Sarah up and down as though there was something about her that simply screamed 'bookish nerd'. 

“I'm sorry,” she says, letting the condescension drip off of her, “what was your name again?” 

His stunned silence gives her enough time to stand up and grab her purse, throwing her coat over her arm as she downs the rest of her wine. 

“Next time, take your date to a restaurant where the staff don't seat you as they wink knowingly,” Sarah ends with, turning with a dramatic flourish that made her feel a little better about the wasted evening.

* * *

It's in her apartment, window open to let in the slightly less stifling air from outside—not having air conditioning was usually just a nuisance, but sometimes it turns into an utter travesty—when Sarah realizes that she's in a slump. Not even a small slump, but one that she knew could take over her entire life if she didn't do something about it soon. And there was nothing even particularly wrong with her life. It was a little boring, sometimes, but that was natural enough—and so what that her ties were so far and few between, no one would really notice if she upped and moved without notice. Everyone she had known, knows, and most likely would ever know had, at one point or another and strategically within her hearing, called the way she lives her life a case of mild 'arrested development'. 

Sarah doesn't believe it to be arrested development, just—waiting for something she wasn't sure she would be able to find again. 

Half into a bottle of wine, sitting in the windowsill and lamenting the fact that she had dressed up for nothing, Sarah looks up into the sky, tracks an airplane for a few seconds, and waits for the magic—always in the back of her mind, and sometimes, late at night, on the tip of her tongue—of anticipation engulf her. 

“I wish...” she starts, closing her eyes after topping off her glass of wine. “Hmm.” 

She wonders if the words would actually work, or if it had been nothing more than a girlhood fantasy turned realistic due mostly in part to her 'overactive imagination' and 'lack of challenging stimuli'. But she feels watched, sometimes, and she thinks she knows the truth. 

That doesn't mean she's ever been ready to know for certain. 

“I wish...” She takes a deep breath, wishing she still had her childhood copy of _Labyrinth_ in her arms—if nothing else, for the thematic arc. “I wish the Goblin King would come and take me away—” 

A bolt of lightning streaks against the almost starless night, and Sarah smiles, finishing her glass of wine, before letting the glass slip down and crash to the back alley below. 

“Right now.” 

Wind rushes through the open window, an owl riding the current, before there's a crack, sulfur in the air as the hair on her arm stands up at the static electricity. 

“For a mortal—you've waited quite awhile. Longer, I think, than truly necessary.

“Have you been lonely in your mortal life, Sarah Williams?” 

“Have you, Jareth?” Sarah asks mildly as she turns to face the fae that had appeared at her beckoning. “Been lonely, I mean.” 

Jareth tilts his head, a strange smile playing on the edges of his lips, and Sarah notes that he looks like he hasn't aged a day in the years since she had seen him last. It's not particularly surprising, but it is a little more uncanny than she was expecting it to be. 

“It's been little time for me,” he finally says, eyeing her up and down as though she is a strange, interesting specimen that he had never quite encountered before. There's a little thrill that goes up her spine at the action, but she bares down against any urge to waver and instead waits until Jareth meets her eye. 

“You've been watching me,” Sarah replies, “all these years. I've been to your land, Jareth the Goblin King, and I have conquered your kingdom—I can feel you in the air around me when you're near.” 

She pauses, letting the words settle for a moment. “You're very often near.” 

“I am,” Jareth concedes easily, slinking close to her with two easy steps, “but if you had called out into the ether for me, commanding I leave, I would have done so—I couldn't do anything less.” 

He leans down, then, a hairs-breadth away from nose, and whispers, “I heard you call out my name.” 

Sarah tilts her face up a little. “I knew you were there.” 

Smiling, as though expecting nothing less from her answer, Jareth pulls away. 

“What do you wish for, Sarah Williams? What do you desire?” 

“Everything that you can give me.” It is an answer that, to most people, can be interpreted as a sort of desperation, a longing for something, someone so obviously out of her control. 

“I can give you everything,” Jareth promises, his thumb ghosting over the corner of her lips, and Sarah leans into the touch. 

“And you will be mine,” she says, bringing her hand up to grip at Jareth's wrist. 

His gaze turns sharp, then, before he smiles—Sarah could see the second the thrill of defeat settled his expression. “I am presuming that you will not submit.” 

“Jareth,” Sarah starts, bringing their bodies close once more as she places her free hand in the hollow underneath his jawline, “have you ever known me to, before?” 

A moment passes between them, neither one willing to close the distance and accept their inevitable resolution. 

“You will not be able to come back to this mortal realm,” Jareth says, “once you leave, you will cease to exist.” 

“Yes,” Sarah agrees, having already weighed her options. “But I've only half-existed since going there the last time.” 

Jareth nods. “You left a part of yourself within my kingdom.” He leans in, then, and he brushes his lips against hers. “And I left a part of my kingdom, a part of myself, within you.” 

The kiss feels almost like a contract, a binding agreement passing between the two of them as static flows between them, electricity running currents through the air as he loses his control, just for a moment. It's the last piece clicking into place, Sarah knows, and she is finally ending a previously years-long stall she had been holding, a single move before her winning one. Jareth's loss of control, his will to submit, is necessary, had always been necessary, always been meant to be and just as heady as she has always imagined. 

“Now take me away,” she says the moment they part, “I've made a wish, after all.” 

“So you have.” 

There's a silence between them, before he continues with, “There will be a change. It will be difficult. It is some of the worst pain, both physical and emotional, that you can imagine.” This is him giving her once last chance, then, to renege, to make another decision—Sarah knows this is Jareth's way of solicitude, of giving her a benefit that he wasn't obligated to, but she doesn't need the out. 

“But it will end,” Sarah says. 

“It will.” 

“Then let me rage, let me weep and sweat and tear everything apart, because I will be doing it towards a better future.” 

“I will have you rage at me,” Jareth replies, eyes dark even as his tone edges into a masochistic playfulness, “and weep and sweat—you can tear me apart again and again and again and I will only beg you for more.” 

“Good.” 

With this, she turns once more to the window. Unlike her first time time, in this instance it opens up to the throne room of Jareth's castle; Sarah is not surprised at his dramatic showing. 

“This is significantly easier than the last time,” she says, motioning for Jareth to go past the threshold before her. 

“You wouldn't have accepted anything easier.” It's the truth—Sarah, unhappy with her teenage life, needed the difficulty, the challenge, the enemy that she would come to both hate and love. 

“I don't particularly enjoy 'easy', even now,” she replies, taking his proffered hand as she stepped across the sill. 

“Allow me to tell you a secret,” Jareth says, pulling her close. “'Easy' is not a word I find myself familiar with.” 

“Well, that's good for me, isn't it?” 

The throne room is empty—Sarah knows this to be by Jareth's exacting design as opposed to its usual purposes—and it takes only a few seconds for Sarah to cross the room. 

“This is nice,” she declares, no hesitation in her as she takes a seat on the throne. She kicks her legs up one of the arms, her spine almost an arc against the other. It is a mirror of their shared past, just as inciting, just as promising, just as unrelenting. 

“Would you like to get our transaction done before or after our _transaction_?” 

“I've never been one for patience,” Jareth says, and Sarah, even as he stalks towards her—both predator and prey as she watches him from the dais—isn't quite sure which he was referring to, not until he leans down, only to grab her and bring her to a standing position once again. 

“Neither have I,” Sarah agrees, and, pulling Jareth down by his collar, leans in close enough so she can, if she wants to, flick her tongue out and catch it at the edges of his lips. 

She does exactly that.

* * *

Sarah Williams, age unknown even when she deigned to think upon it, surveying the kingdom she has helped to continue, was on yet another binge of sub-par days. She had told Jareth only a few months before that she was content enough to take on the entire responsibility as he strengthened their relationship with the upstart of their neighboring kingdom, not wanting to give the queen—Sarah originating from the mortal realm—a reason for reneging on their treatise. That decision was, of course, to her own consternation—she had never truly enjoyed ruling without Jareth by her side and on her arm. 

So now here she is, sitting on her throne, three days after Jareth had been expected back, and absolutely bored of everything. 

There's a crack in the air, sulfur mixing in with static, and she smiles. 

“You're late,” she says as Jareth makes his way up to where she is sitting. 

“What does time mean when we have it all?” Jareth asks rhetorically.

“Absolutely nothing,” Sarah agrees, running her index finger down his nose, past his lips, until it settles into his Adam's apple. “How went it?” 

“The contract has been renewed until the next convergence.” He pauses, lifting an eyebrow as he looks her up and down. “But do you truly wish to speak of business when it's been far too long since last we met?” 

“I do not,” Sarah says. 

The halls are virtually deserted as they make their way up to their wing of the castle, articles of clothing marking their progress as they stumble over one another, quick, wanting, relentless. 

“Come here,” she commands as they fall into bed. Jareth crawls up her body, slow, teasing, his breath hot against her skin. 

“Your wish...” He trails off then, and they become preoccupied with other, more important, matters.

**Author's Note:**

> xoxo


End file.
